THE SELECTION OF "CURRICULUM" BY THE STUDENT AS A LEARNING TOOL IN THE SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION COURSE

In order to test the theory that the choice of curriculum improves learning, the students have been given the option of choosing between varying roads for attaining the knowledge of the Sustainable Construction course from the university-level degree at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid that enables the professional practice of "Arquitectura Técnica" in Spain.

The course syllabus increases the graded activities from the ones traditionally established.

The students design their own individual development project by choosing which of those activities they prefer according to their area of interest. Therefore, an open grading process is used and the students are graded positively even if they don't complete an activity in its entirety. Although the activities and the milestones within them have specified deadlines, they can occasionally be extended. At the beginning of the semester, the students were asked to anticipate the aspects that, in their view, would develop the state of the situation of the field of study that would be addressed during the semester. They were also questioned about the topics and approaches they consider would have a greater impact in the field of study and those related to their future professional activity.

Afterwards, the students were requested to gradually turn those ideas into technological proposals related to the course syllabus. The course's objective is to evaluate the technological proposals in terms of their economic, social and environmental consequences.

Once the students have formulated the abovementioned proposals, the faculty categorized them according to their contribution to sustainable development. The data obtained was disaggregated and anonymized in order to treat them statistically, from the initial proposal to its final definition, and going through the different phases of the process. The students were evaluated by the effort they put into and the degree to which the proposals allowed for a relevant contribution to the field.

The analysis of the students' individual development projects serves to establish relationships between several of the traditional axis of university education, such as the programmed contents, the activities undertaken, the relevance of the students' work as well as their effort and trust and the grades assigned throughout the semester. It is particularly significant that there is direct relationship between the students' involvement in their own development project, the achievement of the course's academic goals and the grades obtained. When one of the first two is neglected, a clear pattern cannot be established.

It can also be observed how the students' trust in their own abilities and the grades obtained rise when the effort is greater, almost independently from their own personal involvement. Therefore, two roads that don't have to be followed simultaneously, but that complement each other can be identified. One is the student's individual effort in following the course syllabus and the other is the student's involvement through the development of personal proposals.

Open curricula allow each student to choose the way to approach the course but don't change substantially the final grade in statistical parameters, although a small group of students have been able to increase significantly their average grades without preventing the rest to follow the usual grading trend.